Adopting disruptive technologies for decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial sectors requires experimentation through demonstration (pilot) projects. However, from an economic perspective, the potential long-term benefits and the difficulties in designing relevant public policies are not addressed in the standard valuations of those projects.
Extracting, processing, and delivering energy requires energy itself, which reduces the net energy available to society and yields considerable socioeconomic implications. Yet, most mitigation pathways and transition models overlook net energy feedbacks.